Rising Storm (Westin Force #2) - Julie Trettel Page 0,29
keep my hands to my side, but I worried I might send her back into her shell if I pressed her too hard, or said or did something wrong. It was like walking around on eggshells.
When we got into the room, she turned to face me. “I haven’t lived in my skin since shortly after my gorilla came in. I don’t trust humans.”
“Well, we aren’t humans, we’re shifters.”
She shrugged. “It’s all the same.”
“But you trust me,” I said. I was certain of it.
She nodded. “I can’t explain why.”
I knew why, but I didn’t say so. She was mine. She belonged by my side. She felt it too, even if she didn’t understand it. Still, when Kyle had called her my mate and asked her to calm me down, she hadn’t cringed or seemed surprised.
“When my parents taught me to climb as a boy, my mom would always say, ‘One branch at a time, Painter.’ How about we take things one branch at a time?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Please, sit.”
She did but seemed nervous.
“Um, are you still in contact with your parents?”
She was just trying to make small talk. I was the one who’d mentioned them.
I shook my head sadly.
“Oh, sorry,” she said quietly, no doubt reading the pained look on my face.
“It’s okay. Scientists were monitoring my band. They thought I was a lost orphan adopted by the gorillas and rescued me. Silas was from a different troupe, but the same thing happened to him. We met at the orphanage, escaped to go home only to find both of our families were killed by poachers.”
She didn’t seem shocked by my story in the least. I had never spoken of it before, not even with Silas, not since that day. I was surprised it hadn’t been harder to explain it to her.
“So you and Silas have been together a long time then?”
“Yeah, since we were kids. He’s my brother through spilt blood. We’ve had each other’s back ever since. To be honest, we didn’t believe there were any other gorilla shifters out there. We figured they’d all been murdered. Both of our parents were working on repopulation efforts due to the possibility of extinction.”
“So were you just an accident then?”
I gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I was. I had some older shifter siblings, but as a family they had decided to live as gorillas and work on repopulating the community. I’ve always blamed myself for their deaths. If the scientists hadn’t taken me away would the poachers have killed my family? I mean I don’t think they would have done it while we were being watched, you know?”
She looked sad, and then shook her head. “You can’t carry that blame on yourself. You were just a kid.”
“How about your family?”
Emma had a pained looked on her face and my heart went out to her. We all had a story to tell.
“I wasn’t exactly a planned pregnancy either. I’m not sure who my dad was, my mom got drunk and they met in the city. He didn’t stick around. I suppose he was human, but I don’t know. I’m sure there was a story there but not one I’ll ever know. All I know is that she hated humans and didn’t trust them and hated me and blamed me for her ever having to spend time in her skin, which she did rarely. I too was found by some humans and taken away. I don’t know what happened to them after that. I imagine she’s dead, sold for meat and fur, or living out there maybe somewhere in a zoo. Supposedly gorillas had gone extinct throughout that region so I can’t imagine she’d still be there.”
I was watching her carefully. “That doesn’t bother you?”
She shook her head. “I was more upset that I got stuck with the humans. It was horrible growing up as the outsider. I don’t have one good memory of my childhood. Still, I tried to live a human life after I got out of there. I worked for a wildlife preservation. I thought it would be great, you know?”
“Not so great?”
She gulped and swiped a tear from her cheek. “Stupid human emotions,” she grumbled. “Let’s just say that, yeah, it wasn’t so great.”
“Tell me,” I said. I sensed there was a lot more to this story.
She shook her head.
I started to wonder if maybe she had someone waiting for her back home. The thought had never crossed my mind before. Did she already have a family?